What Moved The Markets This Week 📈

Netflix To Stream NFL Games, OpenAI's New GPT4o Model, Inflation Softens In April, Reddit Reaches Major Deal With OpenAI, Google's I/O Event, and WMT + BABA + NU Earnings

May 19, 2024

Sunday Morning Markets

Trading Week 20, covering Monday, May 13 through Friday, May 17. Your weekly financial markets update, in less than 5 minutes.

The Week In Review ⏪

US Markets 🇺🇸

Inflation eases to 3.4% (CPI)
Used car prices down 17% from highs
Netflix to stream NFL games
Earnings from Walmart, Alibaba, Nu Holdings

Global Markets 🌏

Microsoft asks China-based employees to relocate
Japan’s economy contracts again
Intel nears $11B Ireland factory deal

Tech ⚡

OpenAI unveils its new GPT4o model
Reddit reaches data partnership deal with OpenAI
Meta to shut down its enterprise Workplace business

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US Markets 🇺🇸

Consumer inflation softened to 3.4% in April providing some relief to rate expectations after four consecutive hotter-than-expected CPI reports. CME’s FedWatch tool now projects two rate cuts by the end of 2024.
Used car prices are now down 17% from pandemic highs after falling 1.4% in April. Kelley Blue Book estimates Americans purchased 35.9 million used vehicles in 2023, down just 1% from 2022.
Retail sales were unexpectedly flat in April as consumers focused spending on essentials and cut back on luxuries amid higher prices. The commerce department also revised March’s sales numbers lower.
Housing starts and permits fall short of expectations with new housing projects increasing 5.7% for the year (est 10%). Building permits, a proxy for future construction, dropped for the third straight month.
Comcast to offer Peacock, Netflix, and Apple TV+ bundle to subscribers at a discounted rate, but did not disclose the price. The company aims to reduce churn after losing nearly 500,000 cable TV customers during Q1.
Netflix to stream NFL games on Christmas for three years, the streaming platform’s first true step into live sports. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but rumors are Netflix is paying roughly $75 million per game.
Microsoft to release next 'Call of Duty' game on subscription service in a departure from its longtime practice of only selling the title independently. The game will likely be listed on the company’s ‘Game Pass’.
Squarespace to go private in $7 billion private-equity deal with Permira. The company went public in 2021 and has since struggled to gain traction, with the stock price falling nearly 30% during those three years.

Global Markets 🌏

Microsoft asks China-based AI employees to relocate amid US-China tensions. The staff, mostly engineers with Chinese nationality, were offered the opportunity to transfer to the US, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.
Intel nears $11 billion deal with Apollo for Ireland factory that could be signed in the coming weeks. The move would expand Intel’s global presence as it aims to catch its chipmaking rival, TSMC.
Japan’s economy shrinks again with GDP contracting 0.5% in Q1. “Japan’s economy is in bad shape. The biggest concern is private consumption,” which has contracted for four consecutive quarters, said Moody’s economist.
China retail sales and investment data disappoint, pointing to slower growth on the consumer side while industrial activity remained robust. China launches major funding program to finance strategic projects.
BYD unveils first pickup truck in Mexico, marking the first time the automaker debuted a new product overseas rather than in China. The ‘Shark’ will start at 899,980 Mexican pesos ($53,407).
Shares of Chinese property developers surged on rising expectations that government entities in China are moving to help buy up excess housing in a bid to revive the struggling real-estate sector.

Tech ⚡

OpenAI unveils its newest AI model, GPT-4o which is twice as fast and half the cost of GPT-4 Turbo. They also launched a desktop version of ChatGPT. Check out some cool demos of the new model on X.
Co-founder Ilya Sutskever says he’s leaving OpenAI to work on ‘a project that is very personally meaningful’ to him. Jakub Pachocki, OpenAI’s research director, will replace Sutskever as chief scientist.
Google launches Gemini 1.5 Flash at its I/O event, its lightest and most efficient AI model. Gemini 1.5 Pro will also get upgrades and will soon be able to handle an hour of video content and codebases with more than 30,000 lines.
Reddit announces new partnership with OpenAI that will allow ChatGPT and other models to train on Reddit’s content. In exchange, Reddit will offer users new AI features, and OpenAI will become a Reddit advertising partner.
Reddit reintroduces its awards system after shutting down the program last year. The company said that most of the mechanisms related to awards will remain the same, with some new additions.
Meta is shutting down Workplace, its enterprise communications business. According to a memo to Workplace customers, the company is recommending Zoom-owned Workvivo as a migration-ready alternative.
Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky to step down after three years in the role ‘to spend more time with his family’. Matt Garman, the SVP of sales and marketing at AWS, will replace him.